Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

We should immediately stop the war on teachers. It is functioning to tear down the very fabric of our society and to drastically undermine our children's future. Accountability for educators is not the central problem of our public schools. A lack of support for poor and near-poor communities is the problem, as well as institutional racism. We should be investing in these communities and providing effective supports for the families to rise out of poverty.

I oppose the punitive measures under the No Child Left Behind Act as well as the Race to the Top program which pits teacher against teacher, promotes high stakes testing, and teaching to the test. Instead, we should follow the example of Finland, which has a widely-admired public school system where improvements were based on the principle of increasing equity for all students regardless of their background. Research has shown that elevating the status of teachers has the greatest effect on improving educational outcomes, even when funds for education are scarce.

We should not allow the privatization of our public schools. Privatization enriches a few while at the same time it does not improve outcomes for students.

Our educational system depends far too heavily on local property tax revenues. This most often means that communities needing the most educational resources receive the least. We need to pursue fiscal policies that direct more equitable resources to education.

We must lift the load of unpayable debt from the backs of our college students. Student debt should be forgiven. Our young people are shackled with debt they took on expecting to come out of college to good-paying jobs. Those jobs disappeared in the Great Recession brought on by Wall Street, leaving our young people with a debt burden that is crushing their ability to contribute their full energy and creativity to our economy. Higher education should be free.

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